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Capping of social housing rents

We are gathering information and campaigning on the proposed change to cap social housing rents to Local Housing Allowance levels. You'll find resources and links on this page to help you raise concerns and collect evidence about the impact these changes will have on your service.

In the Comprehensive Spending Review in November 2015, the Government outlined plans to extend Local Housing Allowance to social landlords. Local Housing Allowance (LHA) is the method by which local authorities identify how much housing benefit a claimant is entitled to, that supports them in paying the rent/accommodation charge and eligible service charge. Currently social housing providers are excluded from LHA.

The new rules will apply to affected individuals who sign their tenancy from April 2016 onwards, although the LHA rate of Housing Benefit entitlement will not apply until 2018.UPDATE March 2016 – The Government have announced that the new rules will only apply for individuals signing new tenancies in supported housing from April 2017. In general needs housing the date remains April 2016.

Supported housing is covered by the new rules.

The Government has said they are committed to protecting supported housing. The Spending Review talks about Additional Discretionary Housing Payments (DHP) being made available for this purpose.

Implications of the proposed change

The proposed change presents serious risks to the viability of supported housing. Many services project significant shortfalls between their current rent levels and the amount they would receive under LHA. We are also concerned that discretionary housing benefit migtht not be sufficient to compensate for this loss.

What you can do

We need evidence from the sector about what the impact of this change would be.

If you provide supported accommodation, please download and complete this spreadsheet and share it with our Policy team. Homeless Link will collate this evidence and use it in our discussions with Government which are currently underway. All this data will be treated confidentially and your service will not be identified unless you are happy for us to do so.

You may wish to use some of this material and write to your MP, outlining your concerns asking them to raise this issue with relevant Ministers. You may also wish to raise this issue with Ministers directly. They may choose to raise this issue, outlining the impact of these proposals on your services and their constituency, to:

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP (Secretary of State for Work and Pensions) and Lord Freud (Minister for Welfare Reform) - Department for Work and Pensions

Marcus Jones MP (Minister for Local Government) and Rt Hon Greg Clark MP, (Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government) - Department for Communities and Local Government.

Confirmation of suspension from DWP and a template letter for landlords

On 1 March 2016 the Government announced a 12 month delay in their plans. They confirmed the suspension in this letter (PDF) and supplied this template letter for landlords to send to their tenants.